by gabriel_sales | Jun 16, 2014
B2B companies today know they need content. This is very clear by the fact that thousands of B2B blogs and videos are now posted every week. But how do you get it to actually do the things you want it to (e.g. generate leads, increase brand awareness, motivate a transaction, etc.)?
Here are 5 steps to B2B content engagement success:
1. Start with your audience
If you start by asking yourself, “What kind of content do I want to make today?” you’re doing it wrong. The first question should be, “What type of content does my specific audience want to engage in?”
For example, do your prospects like quick and fun blog posts or in-depth, technical white papers? If you don’t know the answer to that question, it is pretty easy to do some research, and find out what your competitors are doing. You can also directly ask your prospects what type of content would be helpful to them, which can help you to prove your value during the sales process.
2. Tell a story
Incorporating storytelling into your B2B marketing content seems to be one of the big marketing trends of 2014, and for good reason. Adding storytelling elements to your content helps improve engagement by making your content easier to read and increasing the probability that prospects will retain your message.
By using a ‘beginning, middle, end’ structure, prospects can more easily follow the flow of your content as you present your argument, statistics or other information. Messages with stories also are remembered much better over time and “according to Uri Hasson from Princeton, a story is the only way to activate parts in the brain so that a listener turns the story into their own idea and experience.”
Continue reading.
by gabriel_sales | Jun 13, 2014
Looking to launch B2B sales marketing? Here are your options…
Most companies today have realized that the b2b sales marketing strategies and tactics that worked 10—or even 5—years ago do not work anymore. Marketing no longer revolves around positioning and impressions, and sales is more than endless cold calls and aggressive sales pitches.
B2B sales and marketing today is about having the ability to integrate your sales and marketing processes with digital tools and technologies to simultaneously improve effectiveness and increase efficiency. For B2B companies who have not yet gone through this integration, the process can be overwhelming and time consuming. For many companies, it can take over a year to implement and see results from a marketing automation platform.
In order to streamline these processes and handle the added complexity that comes with B2B sales today, many companies are currently looking to external resources. Companies have several options when it comes to outside sales and marketing resources, and the rest of this blog will look at the pros and cons of using freelancers for B2B sales marketing.
When Freelancers Work
- You have a specific, one-time project or issue.
- Hiring a freelancer can work when you have something that needs to be done that has a clear beginning and end (e.g. a website redesign or marketing brochure).
- You have a clearly defined gap that needs to be filled.
- A freelancer can be a fit when all of the other puzzle places are already in place. For example, you may have all the marketing technology you need running smoothly, but cannot keep up with the constant demands for content.
- You have project management processes and quality assurance standards in place internally.
- Because freelancers, by definition, are not your internal employees, they do not know how you work and what your standards for quality are. In order to get quality work on time, you need to have clearly defined processes and standards in place for freelancers to adhere to.
When Freelancers Don’t Work
- You are starting from scratch
- If you have yet to enter the world of content marketing, social media, customer relationship management and marketing automation, hiring a single freelancer is not going to get you where you need to be.
- The issues you are trying to solve involve different skill sets
- If the help you need involves both content creation and technology integration, you need an outsourced sales and marketing team, not a freelancer. Freelancers typically have very specialized expertise and cannot wear all the hats needed to set up and run a fully integrated sales and marketing program.
- You need help with strategy in addition to execution
- If you have a strategy and plan in place, it is relatively easy to plug freelancers into it. If you have yet to create a sales and marketing strategy, it is likely you need a more comprehensive solution before you will be able to execute successfully.
To learn more about the option of outsourcing your B2B sales marketing, read 5 Ways an Outsourced Sales Team Can Help Your Marketing Team. Feel free to contact us with any questions.
by gabriel_sales | Jun 9, 2014
In recent years, web technologies and digital sales tools have dramatically impacted the way people buy and sell. While many of these technology-related solutions have allowed companies to increase efficiency and improve targeting, they can also seem a bit dehumanizing for your prospects who can tell that machines are interacting with them—not people.
In order to retain the efficiency improvements these digital marketing technologies like marketing automation offer while not seeming like a robot to your prospects, here are three ways to make your marketing automation seem more human:
1. Program follow-up emails to go out at the right time.
Consumers today are now getting used to auto-responder emails, which can sometimes come across impersonal and uncaring. While the argument over the ‘best’ time to send a follow up email will probably never end, you can at least set up your emails to make it seem like a human is sending them. By setting up a follow up email to go out 15 minutes after a link was clicked or request for information was made (instead of 1 second after), you can least seem like you took the time to write out a personal email.
2. Schedule social posts for appropriate times of day for your business.
A lot of B2B companies are using marketing automation platforms or other digital marketing tools to schedule and automate posts on various social media platforms. This is a great practice, as you are able to schedule posts in large chunks rather than having to remember to do it throughout the day/week. However, B2B companies should be careful to watch when they are scheduling posts; it doesn’t make sense for a company selling project management software to be tweeting at two in the morning. B2C companies and global brands can get away with this; but for B2B companies to seem more human, they should generally keep their posts within normal business hours.
3. Respond to followers, friends, fans and other commenters.
While scheduling your social media posts is a great practice, not responding to those who engage with your posts will definitely make you seem like a robot (or just plain rude). Even though you have set up your social posts to run on their own, you should check your social platforms every so often to see who has engaged with you, and respond accordingly.
For more on B2B marketing automation, read 3 Things B2B Marketers Should Always Automate. Feel free to contact us with any questions.
by gabriel_sales | Jun 1, 2014
This is the second half of a blog series on how B2B sales outsourcing can turn around stagnant sales. Part one can be found here.
2. Track sales process using technology and analytics
Until about a decade ago, there weren’t that many ways for marketers to measure their direct contribution to P&L. Today, technologies like customer relationship management (CRM) programs and marketing automation software make it easy to monitor and track lead engagement through every part of the buyer lifecycle.
For companies that have yet to invest in these types of technologies, the learning curve for implementation can be rather high. It can often take a year or more for B2B companies to start to see the results they’re looking for. A sales outsourcing company that offers sales technologies implementation and support services can help streamline the implementation process and get companies up and running much faster than they could on their own.
3. Keep up with increasing demands for marketing content
As we’ve written about previously, marketers today are increasingly expected to act like publishers. While content demands in the B2B may be slightly less than B2C, they can still be quite overwhelming for the average B2B company with limited resources.
Outsourcing your B2B content creation can help you keep up with the increasing content demands while opening up internal resources to work on other activities. It is often easy for companies without a full time content creation staff to get sidetracked on other initiatives; leveraging an outsourced sales and marketing company ensures you keep a steady flow of quality content your readers will find relevant and valuable.
For more on the advantages of outsourced B2B sales, you can read 5 Reasons to Outsource Your B2B Sales in 2014. Feel free to contact us with any questions.
by gabriel_sales | May 29, 2014
While B2B sales is always going to be about building relationships and creating trust, the way we go about doing those things has changed dramatically in recent years. Social media, marketing automation and other digital sales tools and technologies have enabled a new and more effective way of selling while simultaneously making the whole process much more complex.
The new digital marketplace requires better synergy between sales and marketing teams, a steady flow of digital content and web tools to track and measure your efforts. For some companies, making this transition can be hard to handle and involves a long learning curve. Because of this, many companies find an advantage in leveraging B2B sales outsourcing services to help them change and adapt to this new way of selling.
As a B2B sales outsourcing company, we obviously have some bias here, but here are three of the main ways our services bring value to our clients:
- Align digital content with buyer need
By now, most B2B companies know they need to create marketing content to use in the course of their sales process. The part some companies struggle with is creating content that is both relevant to the buyer and contributes to moving prospects through the sales cycle.
A B2B sales and marketing outsourcing company has the experience to know what content works and what doesn’t. They also know how to craft content that speaks directly to your buyers’ greatest needs or pains. At least initially, your content should be able to let your prospects quickly decide whether or not they have any interest in your solution; sales outsourcing services can help you create a content strategy aligned around this goal.
Continue reading.
B2B companies today know they need content. This is very clear by the fact that thousands of B2B blogs and videos are now posted every week. But how do you get it to actually do the things you want it to (e.g. generate leads, increase brand awareness, motivate a transaction, etc.)?
